Q&A: Newhouse, White discuss views on housing, homelessness

Republican Dan Newhouse of Sunnyside is defending his U.S. House seat against Democrat Doug White of Yakima in the Nov. 8 general election.

The Yakima Herald-Republic asked each to talk about their views on housing and homelessness:

Housing and homelessness

The issues of homelessness and housing are compounded in the Yakima Valley. The most recent annual homelessness survey counted 670 people representing 554 households experiencing homelessness in Yakima County, compared with 647 in 2021, an overall increase of 3.6%. Officials recently said the lack of housing in Yakima is putting more people at risk for homelessness. The city has a housing vacancy rate of about 5%, but only 1.7% are available to rent.

What would you do to address housing and homelessness in Central Washington communities?

White: One of the things that I learned — and it came as a surprise to me, I thought I knew this district very, very well — as I traveled up and down, I realized that many of our smaller communities, especially in the Lower Valley, have a disproportionate amount of homeless problems compared to the bigger urban areas, such as the Tri-Cities and Yakima. That came as quite a surprise to me because I guess through my naivete, I just assumed that if you were homeless, you would go to places that would more likely provide good services. That doesn’t seem to be the case, which means that the small communities need just as much help as the bigger communities.

I don’t have a single solution right now. I’m working with and talking to many different organizations that are coming up with truly innovative solutions in order to be able to do this basically on a shoestring and on their own, with little to no support. We get one representative which means one voice, and being a collection of rural communities, it’s important that representative listen to all of them in order to figure out what those needs are and then communicate that in Congress to get the legislation passed. That is something I will do, and I will do differently. It’s been about 30 years since anybody stepped up to do it.

Newhouse: There are so many factors that contribute to increasing homelessness. The shortage of housing is real. The shortage of affordable housing is real. So many things contribute to that, not the least of which is the increasing costs of everything, the high costs of building affordable housing. I think I’m seeing some neighborhoods being constructed throughout the Lower Valley, which is a good thing. But there’s still more that we need to do.

In our homebuilding industry, there’s so many regulations that make it increasingly difficult and expensive to build housing. Every time we put roadblocks in the way of getting the necessary permits, allowing housing to be built, the costs go up. Many people are just literally priced out of the market. There are things that we can do. The Waters of the United States Rule is, I think, one of the most egregious federal regulations that truly has led to the increased cost of housing by limiting the ability to build on areas throughout communities. We need to look at all of these regulatory burdens that increase these costs and continue to price families out of the home market.

One of the things that we’ve been able to accomplish, and I was very proud to play a small role in helping move forward, was the Chuck Austin Place right here in Yakima that helps provide housing to some of our area veterans. Dealing with the homelessness issue is multifaceted: the array of mental health issues, certainly the increased drug issues. We need to make sure that people have counseling available, treatment centers available, and address the things that are preventing them from being productive members of society.